Nobel laureate Amartya Sen criticised the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and said that it violates the constitutional provisions, on Tuesday, January 7.

“The Citizenship (Amendment) Act that has been passed in my judgment should be turned down by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it is unconstitutional because you cannot have certain types of fundamental human rights linking citizenship with religious differences,” the Nobel laureate said at the Infosys Science Foundation event in Bengaluru.

“What really should matter for deciding citizenship is the person’s birthplace, where they lived and so on,” Sen said. Mentioning that the citizenship based on religion was discussed in the constituent assembly, Sen said it was decided that “using religion for the purpose of discrimination of this kind will not be acceptable.”

He, however, agreed that a Hindus in other countries are ill-treated and deserve sympathy. “The citizenship has to be independent, of religion but take cognisance of the sufferings and other issues into account,” Sen said.

The Nobel laureate also said that the Supreme Court should void the contentious Act.

Speaking about the masked mob attack at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sen said that he was “appalled” by the violence on the university campus and accused the administration of failing to prevent the attacks.

“I am appalled that communication between the administration and the police would be so delayed that ill-treatment of students could go on for quite some time without being prevented by forces of law and order. That the establishment of the university cannot prevent outsiders from coming in and creating such bloody violence within the campus,” Sen said.

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